Later, while Ryan was working at his computer and Jane was lying on an old rug in the garden sketching on some scrap paper, with a small pencil-stub lightly suspended between her left forefinger and thumb, she was joined by Melissa, who wore a minuscule string bikini that would have created a riot on the beach. Braced for another round of hostilities, Jane instead found herself listening to chapter and verse about the many, many beautiful, witty and wonderful women who charmed Ryan’s existence, how marvellous a son and brother he was and how he would never do anything that would hurt his mother, especially after the hardships and disappointments she had suffered in the past...
A sledgehammer would have been more subtle.
Jane gritted her teeth through a chatter-filled dinner that Melissa had merrily helped her brother prepare and could barely raise a smile when Ryan firmly stated that she was making him nervous by hovering over his shoulder as he changed the dressing on Jane’s burnt palm. He suggested she pour the pan of hot water on the stove into the sink to start the washing-up, and she immediately began complaining about the unnecessary strictures on the use of electricity.
‘The little sister from hell,’ Ryan murmured ruefully, gently peeling off the old dressing while Melissa clattered the plates indignantly into the sink behind them.
‘You should know—you both come from the same origins,’ Jane whispered tartly as they studied the shiny pink patches of new skin emerging from beneath the weeping blisters, but the hint of conspiracy in his amusement was irresistible. ‘One minute she’s the wicked witch of the Waitakeres, the next it’s Pollyanna on speed,’ she muttered. ‘Is she ever going to run down?’
He chuckled. ‘She’s jealous.’
His soft reply feathered along her exposed nerves. ‘I don’t know why—I’m not making any claim on you...’
His eyes were very blue. ‘A claim doesn’t have to be verbal to exist. If she hasn’t already guessed we’re lovers she soon will...’
His whisper seemed as loud as a shout in her ears, and Jane flushed as she glanced guiltily at Melissa’s expressively outraged back.
‘Ex-lovers,’ she said through her teeth. Her eyes fluttered down and she experimentally flexed her fingers and winced.
‘Still painful?’
Jane nodded, grateful for the prosaic turn of the conversation. ‘But only when I clench or stretch it...the rest of the time it’s just uncomfortably tight.’
‘Graham says to give it another few days under a light dressing, then you can leave it open to the air...’ Much to Jane’s embarrassment he was reporting her progress to his friend over the telephone each day, as if her moderate burn were of life-threatening importance.
After he had redressed the wound Jane left brother and sister finishing the dishes and sat in the lumpy old easy chair under the window in the lounge with her pencil and the sheaf of sketches that were beginning to germinate an idea in the back of her mind. When the others joined her she was sufficiently immersed to have the excuse of turning down Ryan’s suggestion of a card game, so a two-handed game was played until Melissa tired of losing and perversely chose to take a dig at Jane’s self-absorption by plucking up one of the sketches as it slipped off the faded arm of the chair.
The disdain slid off her mobile face, her eyes brightening with interest as she snatched up another drawing. ‘Hey, fashion designs! Far out! I thought you were sketching boring scenery or something. I like this layered look—’
She suddenly remembered she was enthusing to the enemy and tried to affect uninterest as Jane explained that she had often sketched an outfit that she wanted her dressmaker to sew rather than choosing an existing design from a book of patterns or a fashion magazine.
It was left to Ryan to pick up the conversation and ask to see more of the painstakingly executed drawings, and his sister scowled when he expressed a surprised admiration that warmed Jane with pride. Melissa immediately trashed the moment by gushing about the designer who had made such a wonderful job of Ava’s wedding and bridesmaids’ dresses.
‘I don’t suppose Ava could bear to keep it after what happened...’
Ryan didn’t turn a hair at this gross insensitivity. ‘Perhaps she wore it for her second wedding and imbued it with happier memories,’ he said sardonically.
Jane knew the pain he must be shielding with his cynicism. ‘
No, she and Conrad were married quietly in a register office—’ She broke off, biting her lip as Ryan’s gaze snapped to attention.
‘Oh? Were you there?’ Jane looked away. ‘Were you one of their witnesses, Jane?’
‘Yes,’ she admitted uncomfortably.
‘And a godmother to their first child, so I understand. Curiouser and curiouser...’ he said softly. He might have pursued his line of thought, but Melissa distracted him by deciding it was dark enough to turn on the lights and starting an argument when she discovered she was supposed to use lamps and candles that were probably a fire hazard or would give off toxic fumes, or burn up all the oxygen in the room.
By the following afternoon Jane was on the point of throttling her additional unwanted guest. There was no eluding Melissa’s constant, carping, competitive chaperonage, and with Ryan refusing to budge or temper his possessive attitude towards Jane—indeed it had become subtly more intense since his sister’s arrival—she was driven to deliver a gunfighter’s ultimatum: the cramped cottage wasn’t big enough for the three of them. The portable stereo with its head-banging music and floor-pounding bass had been the last straw.
As she’d expected, Ryan declined to tremble at the empty threat, but he did suggest a compromise—the only one he was prepared to consider.
If Jane agreed to spend the next few days in the five-bedroomed house up the hill then, as soon as her burnt hand was fully functional again, she could return to her cottage with a guarantee that she would be left in peace. In the meantime she would have all the privacy she desired, a superb cook/housekeeper to wait on her instead of Ryan’s unsettling personal attentions, and Melissa kept firmly off her back.
‘Is that possible?’ said Jane wryly.
‘In my house, she obeys my rules. If she doesn’t like them, she can go back to Auckland.’
‘And afterwards, when I come back here...you’ll go away and leave me alone?’ she said cautiously. ‘That’s a promise?’